Entries tagged with bitchery

There's something fairly creepy about reading an impassioned rant, written by you, and having no idea what it was about. Lost moments of one's life and all that.

It does sort of touch on my mood right now, though -- although I'm not angry, just sort of disappointed in me -- that I've just spent $45 on buttons. BUTTONS. I didn't actually want to spend $45 on buttons. I didn't intend to buy and show off my posh and glamorous freaking buttons. No, it's just another instance of me being in the line and buying the merchandise already in my hand out of some ridiculous and misguided desire to not hurt the vendor's feelings *facepalm* I would like to rid myself of this trait. I think, though, that starting the process would necessitate me going back to return nonrefundable buttons. Can I do that without causing a scene? (Actually I could probably work on this by leaving the debit card in my desk and taking only teeny amounts of cash wherever I go.)

> Sarah Michelle Gellar and her hit show Buffy The Vampire Slayer has been> blamed for over 50,000 women leaving the Christian churches in England.> > Dr. Kristin Aune, from the University of Derby has said young women are not> going to church because they “link it with traditional values” and they are> into witch craft because of the show.> > She says, “In short, women are abandoning the church. Because of its focus> on female empowerment, young women are attracted by Wicca, popularised by> the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Young women tend to express> egalitarian values and dislike the traditionalism and hierarchies they> imagine are integral to the church.”> > She also believes that women feel the church denies their sexual desires and> that work/family lives are also the reason.> > Aune got the numbers from the English Church Census while researching for> her new book “Women and Religion in the West”>

It is simply ASTOUNDING the lengths people will go to to find a single, controllable culprit for any societal trend.

Nothing about how more and more women are financially independent than ever before, which lends itself to seeking other forms of independence. Or maybe that the scientific mindset nudges people away from looking for arbitrary supernatural authority. Or reproductive freedom. Or the fact that marriage (or more and more commonly partnership) is optional and love-based instead of financially and socially necessary (for the safety net of heirs and of stable and/or influential in-laws), which makes far more people of either (any?) gender more willing to go it alone and less willing to be told what to do...

No, it's gotta be BUFFY. Get rid of that and everything will revert to the wholesome (and wholly fictional) purity and awesomeness of 1912.

(Plus it TOTALLY DISREGARDS THE MISTS OF AVALON. ^_____^)(What? That's what *I* saw sending people over to Wicca and pseudoWicca back in the 90s, when mentioning Buffy love would still get you laughed at.)

Oh my god, are they SURE???? Well who knew? They better do another backup study on whites and Asians and Latinos just to check! Well, whew, at least we can rest assured the peoples of Nunavut and Oceania are still operating on a Borglike hive mind... wait, what?

*seppuku*

(Oh wait, it's USA Today, that really progressive and intelligent newspaper that felt the need to reassure us that Koreans WERE HUMAN after VA Tech.)

(I need to be on the Internet less.)

(I definitely need to never read comments boards on this sort of crap again.)

I will never be warm again. Because as soon as it stops with the freezing outside, they will pump up the air conditioning in here. And in the stores. And on the train. And in the sun. And in the rain. I do not like this constant freeze....

If they put half as much effort into heating as they do into (unnecessary!) cooling, I would have a totally different style of life. My sweater budget would plummet. I would wear more professional outfits including rayon skirts and would have been promoted to CEO by now. Empires would rise and fall at the boom of my voice and the masterful pounding of my fists... *dreams big* ^_____________^

Spent Friday/Sat morning cancelling credit cards. (Am really hating some of these store cards, who set it up to prevent you from contacting a human being with such vigor that I actually had to sit through two computerized sales pitches. "Press 1 for your account information" is one thing, but "Did you know that we are now offering such and such and such FOR A LIMITED TIME??" in a cheerful motorized voice while I'm upset in the streets and trying to report theft is really beyond. In my humble opinion.)

Had a funny week. This was interesting, though -- How is it that when I get into a heated argument with the conservative Staples manager about gay rights and why marriage is for everyone, I walk away with store coupons for $15? That's not how it happens on TV.

On another upbeat note, I just flipped to the Sci-Fi channel in perfect timing to see Captain Jack lay a fat juicy kiss on Dr. Who (who happens to be in an attractive incarnation this time around). Good times.

In what corner of the multiverse could that be considered bad news for women? Why the leap? Why are people (THE MEDIA) so fuckng childish??

Now, if there had been any attempt at intelligent debate here, it might have touched on some important topics, like the future of Social Security and Medicare and the upside-down age pyramid structure that we're going to have to deal with in about ten years.

But no. "Bad News for Women." ALL women. Like it's some kind of goddamned playground score we're keeping here.

I have had no hot water for four days, now. I had to wash out of a cookpot this morning. I feel so rustic. In a bad way. Luckily my hair is so damn curly it looks a million times better dirty than clean, but... ew. It also follows that there is no heat in the building. Also it is 40 degrees outside (30-something last night). Am slightly miserable. Slightly. I need to join a health club so I'll have alternatives in times like these... except I can't cuz I's po'... well, at least I do have fire. And lights. Lights are good. And food. Food is awesome.

It is a really shitty state of mind you get to when you have to decide whether or not it is best for your emotional and mental heath for you to finally drop a friend.

On the one hand, you say to yourself, is it really valid to maintain a relationship because 1) you feel needed, like you can help and/or teach (no, it's bloody arrogant) or 2) you feel a sense of obligation for a major favor done several years ago (no, obligation is obligation, not friendship) or 3) because the one friend is a link to other friends (no, it's your own responsibility to maintain your own damn links)? You think to yourself, friendship should be based on better things than that, like respect, and mutual interests and goals, and actual enjoyment of each other's company.

Then you think -- why should it? Who actually gets that? Outside of television programs?

Anyway. Whatever. My brain is sluggish and bitter due to being unremittingly FROZEN the past four days. That's it.

A Quote Of The Day from a friend of mine (different friend!), who's a high-school teacher in a state that shall remain nameless:

'Unfortunately, this one is not funny. I was telling my students how Chinua Achebe was frustrated b/c the only "African" literature he was exposed to as a child was by European authors ABOUT Africa. One kid said, "But maybe that's because Africans couldn't write until then." And a lot of kids agreed! I was SO mad. I said, "Yeah, like until 1930 African tribes were sitting around beating drums and said, 'Oh, thank goodness, white man bring us words!'" Grrrrrr.'

(In case it matters, my friend -- the teacher -- is white.)

My response (abridged ^^):

"That's why you're a teacher, so you can correct bullsheet like this."

My work here is done.

According to another friend, who teaches here in NYC, they've decided to ABOLISH DESKS IN CITY SCHOOLS. (Including teachers' desks.) That's right ladies and gentlemen -- in order to create a "more personable atmosphere of togetherness in education," you child too can learn how to read and write on an erasable SLATE (circa 1843) while sitting on the rug all day, developing bad posture, and wallowing on the floor where every filthy thing a child walks on including the floor of the school bathroom is ground into the carpet, sneezing all over her fellow students while the little boys park themselves in the proper position to stare up her skirt from 9 to 3!

Last time they were feeling this clever, they abolished PHONICS. So now, we have a five-year gap of kids who can't bloody read basic sentences. It took them five years to realize that this was incredibly stupid. FIVE. Even though the teachers were telling them this from Day 1. Why is this crap always dumped on New York City? Why are our children perpetually the basis of some graduate student's goddamn experiments?

(This is why I chose to deal with words all day, as a vocation, and not people. People are fucking exhausting.)